The history of the first Korean contact with Islam is intimately linked with that of Muslim trade in the China Sea region. The territory referred to in the Islamic sources as the land of Sila, or its distorted form of Shila, appears to be coterminous with the Korean peninsula. Ibn Khurdadbih, in his Masalik al-mamalik, refers to the migration and settlement of a group of Muslims in that area. In his Muruj al-dhahab, Mas`udi gives more detailed information about this group of Muslim immigrants, who he says included some from Iraq. Following the resurgence of maritime trade in China, in the Yuan period, Korea, as a province of the empire, was not uninfluenced by the Muslim officials of the Mongol government. According to Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah, such men as `Ala’ al-Din al-Maliqi and Hasan Zhuching ruled over the province, to which Rashid al-Din refers to as Shing Jurchah and Sulangfah, comparable to Manchuria and Korea.